


The Echoing World

by Phlyarologist



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Dream Logic, Gen, Various Termina Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26536897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phlyarologist/pseuds/Phlyarologist
Summary: Zelda is a long way from home.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18
Collections: Press Start VI





	The Echoing World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rynling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynling/gifts).



> While writing this I had cause to refer to video walkthroughs of Majora's Mask for cutscenes and general atmosphere. ZorZelda's no-commentary, 100% completion, no damage runs ([N64](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL47A5C783DE2E54F7) / [3DS](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkBK2hrDcB5sjkAl1icz7eLbpyg3gRisT)) were both highly informative and an intimidating display of gaming prowess.
> 
> This fic involves some light formatting shenanigans (italics, text alignment), but it'll still read just fine if you strip them out.

There was much to recognize in the court of the Deku King. Lush palace gardens patrolled by overzealous guards, endless functionaries swirling about His Majesty in ritualized obsequy, and so many _mustaches_. They had something rather different for a chamber orchestra – skewing heavily in the direction of tambour and shawm, where Hyrule's finest favored strings – but it was all there. In fairness, Zelda thought, of course it would be – they must have had a society somewhere – the Deku people didn't come often to Hyrule Castle, but their emissaries were always businesslike and eloquent, even if they tended to wheedle. Of course there was a Deku Palace, of course there was a Deku King. There must be institutes of Deku higher learning somewhere. It was not shocking to see them organized along similar lines as her own home, and she must not – she must _not_ , even if they were all very small and self-important and hopped about so quaintly – find this comical.

There was a Deku Princess, too, and in her readiness to complain about overprotective fathers and restrictive routines and why she, though technically still a minor, ought to have more of a say in the kingdom's public policy, Zelda was careful to see only the most flattering parallels.

“I don't think your people have a king, no,” said the Deku Princess, her ponytail bobbing. What was it even made out of? Leaves? Flowers? “There's just Clock Town. Not that I've _been_ to Clock Town. I could handle it.”

“I'm sure you could,” said Zelda, trying not to monopolize the dumplings. They were full of nuts and spices, and they were small, and there weren't very many. What had Impa told her about the Deku people? That they ate sunlight all summer, and only bothered with solid food in the darker months? They did not seem to keep much of it on hand even then. “It doesn't sound like a big city. Clock Town, I mean.”

“It's the biggest.”

“But the castle town -”

“You're dreaming. There are fewer Hylians than ever. How would they have a whole castle?”

Zelda had awakened that morning in a longboat tangled in the lilies outside the Deku Palace. She had no recollection of getting into it. Thinking aloud, she said, “I must have come a long way down the river.”

“Maybe that's where they all went. All the way upriver. I didn't mean to be rude.” The princess thought. “Have some more dumplings. Your fronds are too pale.”

* * *

_The witches deny any knowledge of the high desert._

_Their potions are compounded of mushrooms and marsh grass and the odd unwary amphibian, where Zelda remembers them all horse blood and creosote. In terms of odor, this is not an improvement. In efficacy – well. They know their business. In any world, they will know their business._

_For a third time Zelda tries to steer the conversation her way. “Where I come from, there was a prince among your people -”_

_Koume and Kotake exchange some unspoken signal. One says, her voice too sweet, “You have the strangest dreams, don't you? Potions for that.”_

* * *

Wind whipped down the canyon, and it was hard to distinguish its whistle from the low sigh of the ghosts. That there were ghosts was not in question; Impa had taught her better than to doubt that. Or to fear.

“What are you?” Pamela said bluntly. “What are you _really?_ ”

The girl's father seemed to have forgotten Zelda was there, if he had ever noticed; he was pacing along the riverbank writing things down in a pocket notebook. He had some metal thing strapped to his back, with a hose coming out of it, and a wand; he'd periodically fumble the notebook back into his coat and wave the wand over a stretch of bare stone, and the thing on his back would either go _ping_ or it wouldn't, and he'd frown and fumble his notebook back _out_ of his coat and -

Pamela interposed herself. “Don't look at him. I'm the one talking to you.”

“I'm Princess Zelda of Hyrule,” said Zelda. “I'm trying to find my way home. I was told the royal court here -”

Pamela's eyes narrowed. “Where's Hyrule? What court are you trying to get to? How'd you get up that _cliff?_ ” Zelda realized with a start that Pamela was on the verge of tears. In a low, furious voice she said, “I told him we shouldn't go this far from the house. The music only goes so far. But you can't take him. Nobody can take him. I just got him back. I hate living here!”

Her voice had risen enough to carry back to her father. “Now, now, Pamela,” he said vaguely, and she threw a guilty glance at him over her shoulder. After a moment a thought seemed to strike him, and he unshipped the wand and did some complicated juggling maneuvers with his pen. “Who's your little playmate?”

“Princess Zelda of Hyrule,” said Zelda, sidestepping a fuming Pamela to address him directly. The father was the weak link here. She had to choose her angle. “I've...” She gave the machine a closer look, and made absolutely no sense of it. “I've heard so much about your research.”

“I do love to meet a fan,” he said. “Which of my abstracts was it that brought you here? Ah, but – hold very still, young lady -” And he waved the wand over her, and the machine went _ping ping ping ping._

Things happened quickly; Zelda was hustled back upriver toward the researcher's house; strains of cheerful music began to weave in through the sounds of wind and ghost and the waterfall far below. Pamela watched her avidly as the music grew louder. “You're not uncomfortable? You're sure? You can still walk?”

She could still walk.

But the researcher was chattering to her about Ikana Canyon, the ancient castle of Ikana, a long-dead king; guards, retinue, even musicians similarly deceased; no one here she could address as “our royal cousin” and prevail upon for safe passage, not for positively centuries. And she had never heard of Ikana, despite the fact she was very good at ancient histories and despite how Impa had quizzed her on all minor tribes subject to the Crown and quite a few outside its authority. She must be farther from home than she'd ever imagined.

Pamela's father said, “Based on this conversation and a few incidental readings – though you don't mind if I take a few more? Thank you – I'm ninety-five percent certain you're not a ghost.”

“You're not a Gibdo,” said Pamela.

“But you're certainly _something_.”

I already told you what, Zelda thought, but bit her tongue.

* * *

_Zelda thinks, I know you, you're the farmer's daughter, on market days I'd watch you loading up his pony cart and imagine trading places._

_Sheik thinks, I know you, you're -_

_Why are you here twice? Why am I?_

_Sheik looks at herself sidelong. No, she's Zelda, and she's small, close in age to the younger of the two of Malon. Yet she knows what Sheik knows. Why? Is it the same for Malon-Romani-Cremia, triune farmgirl? What is this place?_

_Is that important?_

_“I'll protect you,” she says; from child Zelda's mouth it sounds cocky. “Aliens, bandits, no matter.”_

* * *

Termina's people were scholarly, if nothing else. This land produced more eccentric scholars per capita than -

\- Zelda caught herself about to finish the thought, _than any place I have ever been,_ but how many places had she been, really? She stared at her reflection, dim and greenish in the glass of the big empty tank, and it seemed to her that it was the wrong height.

In a smaller tank, by the door, two big red fish zipped around erratically, circumnavigating their whole world twelve times a minute. A skeletal old man in a dirty smock was adjusting the pump that aerated the aquarium. “Is it a very noisy place?” he asked her. “This Hyrule of yours.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” The lab was none too quiet itself; all that insulated it from the wind and waves of the bay was a sheet metal dome. Pipes bolted to the inner wall circulated water when called for, which probably helped regulate the temperature but added a lot of _plunk_ and _slosh._

“Songs sometimes reach us here from the ocean. Sometimes things even the Zora can't identify. Strange resonances...” He produced a tuning fork from Farore knew where and rapped it against his desk. Its clear low tone vibrated through the walls of the lab, and got into Zelda's teeth. “Waves propagate. Your world could have many echoes.”

“You could just tell me you haven't heard of it,” said Zelda, impatient. The vibration seemed to walk up through her jaw and through the jelly of her eyes; it throbbed in her temples like it never meant to leave. “Will anyone nearby have sea charts?”

“I'm afraid not,” he said. “Pirates.” He muffled the tuning fork with his free hand, and put it down. Somehow Zelda still felt it ringing. The smell of salt water seemed to strike her in the face anew. “No Hylian has sailed from these shores in years.” He shook his head. “Even the Zora feel their threat. The last clutch of eggs barely -”

“I could ask the pirates for passage,” she said, suddenly convinced, despite the mounting headache, that this was something she knew how to do. Who was to say she couldn't be at home on the briny? Who was to tell her she couldn't hold a sword in her teeth – and – something about rigging –

“The Gerudo?” said the researcher. “No, child. Those women are no one's friends.”

She felt she was being lied to. Not by this man, necessarily, but by – the world?

“I'm trying to change the lab's resonant frequency,” he said, with the air of someone making a friendly concession. “For the incubation tank. They're sensitive to these things. You could stay – listen for your world. Or for whales. There are whales sometimes.”

I could cast away from here, she thought. I could let the stars show me home. If people weren't cowards.

* * *

_“Well, you're a child I've never seen in town before. Are you a new friend of the Bombers?”_

_Is she? Would she know a Bomber to meet one? “I'd like to use your telescope, sir. Please.”_

_“Wonderful,” says the professor, “most commendable. Such an exciting time for the young to take an interest in science.”_

_There are stars in the sky. She spins the telescope around. Stars that way, too._

_They mean nothing to her. She asks for one of the professor's books, and can't read it._

_“Young miss,” he says, sadly, “what are you hiding from?”_

* * *

She isn't in Clock Town for its own sake. She doesn't know much, but she knows that.

(Isn't it odd that she knows that? When so much else is a mystery, isn't it strange that this is what she knows, and that it seems worth note?)

She is in Clock Town because she has been to three points of the map already, stared off into the distance, and seen nothing. Next she will go north and apply to the Gorons for help. Maybe over the mountains, or under them, in some secret tunnel, there's a way back to where she is supposed to be.

(Where is she supposed to be?)

But it's cold up north, and this dress, and these shoes, aren't fit for the conditions. She needs climbing gear. A warmer overrobe. Mittens. Those boots with spikes, do they come in child size? So, as the leaves begin to yellow, as the days shorten toward equinox, as the roads into Clock Town flood with carnival-goers and the laneways sprout merchant stalls like mushrooms overnight – it seems to her that this is the place to be. Just to make a few purchases, and be on her way.

It seems to her that this place has an air of disaster averted, or disaster yet to come. Maybe this is only fair. Disaster strikes everywhere, eventually. If only she knew why people kept glancing warily skyward, making hand signs to avert ill fortune.

A merchant whose face she doesn't quite recognize quotes her a price for a heavy wool cloak, and she's so discombobulated that she can't stop herself asking, “Is that a lot?” She can't remember if she has any money on her. It was never her habit, before she came to this world.

(How long has she been here?)

“Just take it,” the merchant says, with an expression half pity and half impatience. “Don't tell my husband. Fireworks are starting soon, I need to close up.”

“Fireworks?” says Zelda.

She is at the foot of a tower, in the shadow of another tower. She hears bagpipes, and then hears them cut off. People are dancing, and then they stop. Other people jostle for position. A woman says proudly, “One year I got so close the ashes fell in my drink,” and then stumbles, and some of this year's drink splashes onto her neighbor's hem.

Gears turn. The clock tower's mechanism begins a laborious grinding. The sky fills with color and light. The sound of the explosions is almost lost in the din, but the concussion isn't; with each firework shell that detonates a wave of pressure catches her in the chest. It's exciting. It's terrible. She's on top of a tower now and staring across a bridge. 

The clock face is rising. The lighthouse chamber above it teeters precariously and then tilts. The Mayor of Clock Town holds up his hand, and the final volley of fireworks shakes the Festival Tower on its wooden struts. Cheering and mayhem. Zelda's ears ring and her balance is gone. The Mayor drops his hand. Across the bridge, a door in the clock tower is opening, and behind it the rows of brick wall retract to form a staircase.

She stares dizzily across the bridge. Behind her the crowd begins to press. It's time to cross. It's time to bring this festival to the next stage.

The Mayor gives the signal to go ahead. “What are you waiting for?”

(What are you hiding from?

Why are you here?

_You have the strangest dreams, don't you?)_

This is not inevitable, she tells herself. This is a choice she is making. This step, and the next. Somewhere a song is playing, upside-down and backwards. She holds her head up, and crosses the bridge in torchlight, and into the dark. 


End file.
